


Unto the East

by historia_vitae_magistras



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Consensual Sex, Enjoy!, Erzse is badass, F/M, Gilbert is broken, Lutz is confused, Mentions of World War Two, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, PruHun, Smuggling, THE COLD WAR, The Berlin Wall, Warning: Mentions of Nazism, What else is new?, but still there is smut abounding, even tho lutz doesn't appear til the last chapter, illegal things children, including boning in public, spy craft, there are a shit ton of brotherly feels in this too, tho less than usual, warning: even my porn has historical notes, warning: feelings, warning: lots of sex, warning: mentions of gore, warning: too many metaphors, warning: twat snorkeling, warnings: mentions of war, well porn with a little plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 22:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11262699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historia_vitae_magistras/pseuds/historia_vitae_magistras
Summary: In February 1963, Erzsé Héderváry is an old hand at smuggling, the Brothers Beilshmidt have not seen each other in eighteen years and the world beyond the Berlin Wall is colourless and cold.Or that one where: Gilbert is broken, Erzsé is badass, and they bone everywhere I think it's legal to bone in East Berlin.Oneshot. Complete.





	Unto the East

  


It makes an even Face

Of Mountain, and of Plain

Unbroken Forehead from the East

Unto the East again

-From Emily Dickinson's 'It sifts from Leaden Sieves'

* * *

 

February 1963  
East Berlin

Every year, when the winter roads went slick with black ice, the high command took his motorcycle. They exchanged his sleek, Hungarian motorcycle for the keys and petrol vouchers to a car. The first time they'd done it, his heart at banged away with excitement. A real car! To be inside a real car again. Steel and exhaust and squealing tires and room for two.

But then they'd presented him with the little Trabant squad car with its shit two stroke engine. He'd sighed. His bike might have chugged black exhaust and left his ass aching at the end of the day, but at least it fucking ran. The piece of shit he had now chugged around the backstreets of Berlin. Snow crunching under its flimsy tires. Fresh from the factory, its engine whistled like it was already in its death throes. Fucking thing hardly got above cruising speed. Once a month, he found himself pushing it home. He'd lost his gloves in December, so every time he left a half-hand of skin when he removed his hands from the bumper.

But, life carried on. By February his hands and lips were raw and cracked. He bled when he smiled. Every patrol pulled back from zipping through the backstreets. Life slowed down into repetitive trundling lines on the same broad boulevards. The squeal of his motorcycle's tires turned to only the sound of the crackle of scanners. He missed the wind drowning out all but the pulse of blood in the ears and the revving of his engine.

Gilbert hated it. He hated being cold and wet in a plastic piece of shit like this. Even at Stalingrad the fucking Kubelwagens hadn’t frozen up in the snow like this so-called car did. He was half frozen between the weak streams of the vents.

He wanted to be back at the apartment. The apartment had his bed even if the baby next door wailed loud enough to wake the whole building. The neighbours liked him. He didn't bang on their shared wall when the baby cried. For 500 years he’d slept through canon fire and chaos. A newborn was about as likely to wake him these days as a rainstorm was.

But the apartment wasn't home. A home was beer in the icebox, the Victrola spinning Bach into the living room, cake in the cupboard. A home was potatoes in the cellar and swords on the wall. A home was his brother's nagging that he shouldn't clean the guns in the table where they ate. He's not sure where home ever was. But it's not his battered little fourth-floor apartment in the oldest building in Pankow.

At least the apartment had heat. The pantry was empty, but there was a half pack of cigarettes on the bedside table. Gilbert had only washed the sheets two days before. He'd been alone, curled up in bed, wishing he had either company or enough booze to get blackout drunk. Then the phone down on the landing between the floors had rung. No one else in the building had any business that required police summonings in the dead of night.

He'd gotten up and answered. But the nervous police lieutenant could only tell him that they'd caught someone trying to cross the wall. A wealthy westerner babbling nonsense in the streets. But a wealthy-looking westerner heading into the city, instead of out. Strange, as it was only a harmless woman alone. The wall was new, after all. He'd gotten dressed, shoving unwashed hair under the peaked cap. He'd buttoned his coat, trousers, and belt over his nightshirt with shaking hands. Then he'd dragged himself to the precinct and made a show of shoving her into the backseat.

He glanced back at Erzse. He wouldn’t want to be behind the grated barrier in what amounted to a unheated seat in a cage, much less in a dress. He might have pitied Erzsé if he hadn’t been warm and comfortable when the phone had rang.

Wherever the hell she'd gotten those clothes, it wasn't on his side of the wall. They were finer than anything than he’d seen her wear since the last war. A tight, tailored coat over one of those bell-shaped, western style dresses. Extra fabric that that spoke to a society doing better than his own with its material and food rationing. What the hell she'd been doing on the streets wearing that, he knew better than to ask. Whatever she’d been doing, she had known exactly what to do when caught.

She'd played dumb, speaking her Hungarian to a group of Berliners. They'd never been further south than Potsdam. She could have been speaking Martian for all they knew. He wondered what she'd said in her Hungarian. All the Lieutenant had been able to make out in the clipped, throaty language was a single familiar word.

Fruehlingserwachen.

And that? That the police knew to call him over. Spring awakening. They had little glimpses into his existence, strange rules in the books. Add phrases they had long since left to languish in the history books. But someone had read the word and known. Spring Awakening. What they had called his last offensive of the war. They'd mounted everything they had left. Ludwig had sent everything left from his last western intervention in Belgium. Ten tanks divisions. Five infantry divisions. All the guns and ammunition the country could spare. All to defend Hungary and her oil before the Russians could cut off the army to the south.

Day's in, neither he or Erzse had slept, and they were out of momentum. He’d hoped, prayed to God that Ludwig wouldn’t ignore his desperate telegrams. He needed more men, more guns, more of everything to hold the line, to hold the line in Hungary and in East Prussia.

But there had been nothing left. In the end, Hungary had fallen, and Koenigsberg had burned. It still hurt sometimes. Throbbed like 1947 all over when he forgot that breathing would let him feel the divisions of his spliced being,

He wondered if he could separate the chambers of his heart. He wondered if he’d flat out lost half when Ivan had sliced away Koenigsberg. Then another bit when the wall had split his Berlin in two. He wondered if anything could be in his empty chest. He wondered if his brother felt it too. He wondered what Erzse felt when she would lay against him on those rare nights he didn't sleep alone.

Erzsé had fought those last months, her will seeping into her men and bolstering them. She’d fired round after round after round into the alleys and streets. She'd thrown grenade after grenade. But she couldn't replace her men or her food, and the Russians never seemed to run out. The weeks had dragged to months and as her cheeks had sunken, so had her will to fight. She’d fallen at Budapest, hands in the air and her gun on the ground. His brow had shot up, surprised, when he'd heard it. He’d expected Erzsé to fire a shot right into the back of her own head. That's what she'd done when the Ottomans had taken her capital all those years before.

But it hadn’t been Ivan there to drive her into the ground. It had been Yekaterina. Merciful, logical, sane Yekaterina. Not her mad sister or her deranged brother. It was as good as Erzsé's surrender could have been. She'd remained in Budapest, after the war. There'd been no show trial or exile for her.

Now, the woman behind him looked as if none of it had ever happened. Her face was full, and her body had filled out once more, even under the layers. Through the grate, her eyes sparked. She noticed his gaze. When he looked up, she looked him right in the eye through the rear view mirror.

“Would you please let me sit shotgun. It's fucking freezing back here, and no one will care.” She had her arms twisted around her body to conserve heat. He almost snorted. What was the point of a coat that expensive if it didn't keep out the cold?

The choice tore at him. Most of him wanted to let Erzse out. He wanted to let her up front and ask exactly what the hell she'd been doing and what she was doing in up here. But a deeper part of him knew the rules, knew there was only so much he should risk. The smaller, deeper part knew there is only so much more pain he could take. That part knows he lost his strength there above the arctic circle in the name of the blue-eyed boy he’d raised into a man.

“No one will care about your arrest because I’ll say we’ll found you without papers but they’ll care about how I handle it. So, no!” He swallowed, lowered his eyes to the road.

“Well okay, see if I share what West sent you then.” He heard her grin. Then the name. He stiffened, whipped the steering wheel hard to the right and hammered down on the breaks. The shit little car lurched to a halt, sending him and Erzse rocking forward. He threw the clutch into park and the car shrieked a squeal like a dying, metallic pig.

“Jesus— What the—Gilbert?” Erzse fingers where her curled hair has escaped the pins keeping it away from her face

Gilbert doesn’t answer, only stares off into the dark. West. He’d heard her correctly. West, the little solemn-faced boy he had stolen as a war prize from under Roderick's nose. West, who had grown up to be everything.

Once, there had been nothing but vainglory. Nothing but cold, arrogant pride in what he’d accomplished. Once, the slaughter of his brothers had been logical survival. But a child clutching at him, thin arms around his thigh, that had driven new feelings down his belly. He’d still killed, and he was still happy with a rifle pressed into his shoulder, and the blood of Southerners splattered across his face, but something had changed. The 1800s had brought with it domesticity. Nights were no longer best spent at cannon fire, but on a bed with a warm weight on his chest and the slow drone of his voice as the little creature fell asleep to his reading. Days were no longer completely fulfilling if there wasn’t a brother to teach, check in on or eat with.

Life without Lutz was cold, aimless, meaningless. Erzse had... she’d seen him? He’d heard her right, his ears worked fine, despite the explosions over the aeons of his life. He’d heard her right.

He inhaled, stilled his hands on the wheel. When he spoke, it's soft and impossibly hoarse.

“Erzsé?”

“Yeah?” She hummed, her breath warm on his neck.

“Do you—” His breath hitched. West. He’d heard her right. God, please, please let him have heard her right. “Do you remember how to get out?”

“Yeah, I remember.” She said, and her voice is free of mirth for the first time since he’d clapped her in cuffs. His gaze flicked upwards into the rear view mirror. Her eyes are bright. Gilbert yanked the wheel and turned the little car into the shadowed alley.

She moved. There was the rattle of steel and a short hiss. Then Gilbert heard the back door opening, only giving him time to feel the sharp winter air before the door slammed shut. He shivered as she crossed the front of the car to make her way to the passenger’s side door. She smiled, please with herself. But her face dimmed with something else. There was another blast of cold as she got in and slid across the seat. He shivered again and cursed the rough cut of his winter uniform and the faulty heat of his car. But he knew it wasn’t only the winter settling into his bones.

“Gilbert—” She said, and he wouldn’t meet her gaze, instead staring down at the steering wheel. “Gilbert, look at me, please,” She cupped his jaw, raised his eyes to hers.

“You saw him then?” He swallowed, and she rewarded him with the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“I did.” She nodded, and her eyes are grinning, but uncertain. They have not discussed Ludwig. Since he came back from Siberia, there has been a barrier behind Gilbert’s eyes. It hid everything she might otherwise see. Since the Wall went up, his heart has been weak, banging away in his chest like it might stop. He is an old soldier, a master at keeping his mind on the task at hand. He marched as ordered, ever the diligent soldier. He drove as ordered, ever the diligent soldier. He slept as ordered, passed out on the bed with the schnapps bottle empty on the bedside table. He smoked as ordered, two packs a day, always with ash under his nails and in his lungs. He lives. He is not alive, but he lives. He knows she sees the difference. She’s being too gentle not too.

“He’s—” Gilbert swallowed. His voice cracked like a boy’s on the cusp of manhood. “He’s all right?”

Erzsé nodded and her smile spread. He saw her teeth, and if only for a moment, her grin was brighter than the lamplight outside.

“He looks better than I’ve ever seen him. He’s grown even.” She said.

And god, god he wonders. Lutz had been grown hard and tall by the end of the last war. He had grown into the huge blue eyes, and his baby pudge had melted away into hard lines and a sharp nose. He looked so like their father sometimes that it was all Gilbert could do not to startle like a fool.

He stared off into the distance. The image of his brother an inch or so taller and broad in the shoulders once more is strange, sublime. He almost doesn’t remember the rolling wave of emotion that thunders through him. Another shiver follows on its heels. But then there’s warmth as Erzse threw her arms around him. He could feel the warm of her through the wool of his winter uniform. And then he remembers. Pride! Pride surging in him like strength, fire and all the paternal fury he’d ever had. Pride! Lutz was all right. Lutz was fine!

He could always feel Lutz’s heart banging away across the concrete of the wall. He was there, warm and alive and Gilbert could feel the pull of him beyond. But the feel of his nationhood wasn’t the same as the real sight of him or the visual reassurance that he was well. Somehow Erzsé’s words were better than the pull because she had seen the man himself.

“He’s fine.” She said, and it is a benediction, God himself answering his prayers. He buried his face in her coat. The expensive French wool, the colour of Bordeaux wine, was soft against his face. She squeezed him.

“You should be so proud. He’s doing so well.” She whispered. His breath hitched. Ludwig is fine. It’s fine. Everything in the last half century has come to something like fine. Even if he, himself, isn’t.

“Gilbert, everything you did—every last thing you did, it was worth it. He looks like Alfred. He looks free.” If anyone on their side of the fucking Iron Curtain knew what freedom looks like, it would be Erzsé. Erzsé who'd spent her formative years riding bareback on her open Hungarian plains.

He buried his face in her collar, bit down a sob. She gripped his coat and surged up, wrapping herself around him. He clasped his hands around her back. His eyes were dry, but he heaved great sobbing gulps of air and shook. Erzse held him, held him like he was a child, a hand his hair and the warmth of her around him. She whispered to him. Muttering her whispered witchery into his jaw like he was another one of her wild horses to calm.

It was worth it. It was all worth it. Lutz is tall and broad and well just across the fucking Wall. He’s taken the West and its prosperity into his heart and reached to the skies. West wasn’t built for war. Gilbert had made Lutz for trade. He'd raised him to long for clean houses. He'd raised him to make a nation of solemn men with waistcoats and polished pocket watches, wise women with new dresses and pearls around their necks, happy children with full bellies and school uniforms. He'd been born to represent full pantries, full employment, and order. Gilbert had raised him with strength. Not Gilbert’s strength. Not power made from order born of chaos, cannon fire, and carnage. Ludwig’s power was order built upon trade, equality, and uplift.

He is a child of a new order. He belonged to a new world that has nothing to do with ocean crossings or geography.

Gilbert has succeeded. He’s taken the weakness, and rotting heart of the East and freed Ludwig of it. They will both live. Gilbert will be the shield of the east. If there is war, it will tear Gilbert asunder and leave him in the ashes of Berlin before it ever touches his brother. He has already given his heart, his Koenigsburg, his East Prussia, his name for the sake of his brother’s life. The day might come when Ivan wages his war across the wall. But whatever shreds of Prussia they've left will preserve what his brother has earned.

His brother’s peace. Ludwig will have peace.

“It was worth it,” Erzse said. He wonders if she knows exactly he’s done. She might. Erzse always knew the minds of the men around her better than men themselves did. She pulled him closer to her and swung her legs across the seat, so she leant across his lap. The rivets in her boots glinted, and he almost smiled. Erzse, for all her finery, still hated tromping about in heels. She dug in her pocket, produced a pack of cigarettes. He leant down to take one between his lips when she offered it up.

She snapped her lighter once and herself up before she lifted her chin to touch his cigarette to hers. He inhaled, drawing her flame into himself. He drew in a lungful of smoke, smooth as the satin of Erzse’s dress. It sank through his lungs and chased away the shivering and wavering in his hands. He exhaled, cracked the window and watched the smoke rise into the night like a prayer. Erzse kicked her leg up until her ankles were on his knees and leant in.

He slid his hand to hers and laced his fingers into her own. She smiled.

“Bet you missed these, huh?” She said, waving the cigarette in front of his eyes. It's short and squat and judging by the shot of nicotine flooding his veins, French. He almost scolds her, as wasted ash burns away and settles on the floor. But this is Erzse; she can afford a little waste these days. He sighs, takes another drag. God, he’s missed real cigarettes.

“Gauloises?" He asked and lifted the corner of his mouth, and for once, his face doesn’t feel like it’s going to shatter with the movement. It’s been a long, long time since he’s sat down with Francis and his wine or his cigarettes.

“Courtesy of friends across the wall.”

“Yeah?” He said. Strange, to think of Francis as a friend. Odd to think he has friends, that people across that great ugly barrier would still think of him after that’s happened, what he's done.

She fingered a loose curl near her temple and laughed. “You arrested me for bringing you presents.”

He snorted. “I did not. You weren’t even arrested.”

“Yet there I was, in a jail cell, for bringing you presents.” She laughed again, and it rose in his ears like the agitation of bells. He turns away, scowling. Her legs drop to the floor from his lap, and she and her warmth retreated to the passenger’s seat. Reckless, endlessly brave Erzse. She’s better than him, and she knows it. She’s never short on courage or strength. He is. He’s as washed out as the wan form of his reflection on the window.

He threw himself against the window and heaved a sigh. He meant to will away his frustrations. Instead, his words were as bitter as a beer made with foreign hops.

“You weren’t arrested for smuggling. They probably detained you because, well... remember that talk we had with Ivan about the goulash economics not spreading around? And the threatening of the pipe going places where pipes should not go?”

She snorted, gave him her best-annoyed look. He doesn’t care. He wants to reach for her, make her understand, but her face turned sour. She glared at him, and he turned his gaze away and glared out the window. The alley slipped into dark pin-pricked with the piss yellow light of lampposts in the distance.

She pulled on his shoulder and turned him back to her a moment later.

“Since when the fuck are you scared of Braginski?” She asked, and her mouth was a cruel slash of a smile across her rouged face.

Shame prickled in his belly and rose like bile in his mouth and words. He still some pride still has some bite.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe that whole decade where I disappeared, and not a soul saw me until they established the Volksarmee?”

She hesitated something like realisation dawning and softening her face.

He sighs.“Since then.”

She flinched, and Gilbert didn’t have it in him to apologise. A moment passed in silence. The pucker between her eyebrows grew fainter as her anger and dissolved, and he was happy to give his attention to the world beyond his window and finish his cigarette as they sit in silence. The bricks where technically whole, but pockmarked with old bullet wounds. The entire city, his beating Berlin heart, was like that. He takes drag after drag until it burns low in his hand and she takes the cigarette from him, ashing it in the tray between the footwells.

“Come here,” She said and kneeled. She placed one leg, glossy with expensive stockings, on either side of his thigh. She smoothed her skirts down under her and sat. She played with his lapels for a little, fixing his collar, running a hand across his chest. There were no ribbons or pins or medals. There was nothing to indicate rank, position or value. He didn't have anything like value anymore. He put his hands around her waist, wanted to draw her closer. Her coat was soft, and she smelled like expensive perfume mixed with her fancy cigarettes and her own paprika and pine. Her hair curled away from her face onto the plush lapels of her coat. God, he wanted to just lay his head there. Just as he moved to jostle her closer, she spoke. “You know I didn’t go over there for cigarettes or a dress, right?”

And he knew. He did. Erzse had always liked the nicer things in life, ever since she'd married that priss across the Alps, but she was still Erzse. Why the hell she went, she did it for her own reasons. For good, logical reasons.

He nodded.

“I went to see him.” Her breath raised goosebumps along the back of his neck, and she sighed sadly as his muscles locked. Gilbert hated how jumpy he was, even now. “I went to see him for you.”

She settled forward, leaning him against her chest. “I know you hate not knowing.”

His chest spasmed. He doesn’t exist. He doesn’t exist, but Lutz does. Germany does. She does. Hungary does. It’s enough. He heaved. He was exhausted. She kissed his forehead like she knew it, letting him sag against her and the seat.

After a long time, she retracted her head and kissed him once, twice, three times along his jaw. He hadn’t shaved in days, and he heard the stubble bristle a bit under her mouth. She didn't seem to mind. She hiked up her skirts; her thighs were pale and naked under the stripe of the ribbons holding her stockings there. She opened her legs a little further, leant and lifted her skirt and the long line of her slip a little more. He caught a sight that he hadn't seen since between the wars. She was bare and flushed between the tops of her thighs. Smooth, hairless and pink as sandstone votive statue polished smooth with the kisses of worshipers. And oh he wanted to kiss her there.

“What did you—” She didn't let him finish.

“I said, I brought back presents,” she whispered. Even her German sounded like the decadent West. Sounded too Austrian and too lilting for him and his Berliner German that ground like the shifting concrete of the Wall itself in the ears of Southerners. There was something decadent in that accent of hers. Something that still spoke of velvet and cake and the gold of oil lamps in their silver holders.

She kissed him then, a burning landmine of a kiss, all cigarette smoke, teeth, and tongue. He did nothing. Colour rose in his face even as his heart dropped into his belly, dread like bile flowing up into the gorge of his throat. When he didn't rise to meet her, she stopped, pulled away. He didn't stop her.

He wanted to look around and look at her, show her the fear that costs him so dearly to keep from his eyes. He hated the cold. He hated breaking the party’s rules. He hated leaving her wanting. He hated leaving her wanting in the cold even more. But he could only keep his head down.

Erzse reached for him. “Hey, we can try the other way round?” She leant back and parted her knees, inviting him on top of her. And Christ, he must have looked pathetic if she was offering that. He could count on one hand how many times in a thousand they've done missionary.

“Fuck no.” Gilbert scowled into the plastic steer wheel. “I’m not breaking my face, my dick and my car trying to bone in this piece of shit.” He yanked himself forward and pulled his collar up until it met the back of his cap and shrank forward away from her and her heat.

Erzsé huffed, looked half offended and sat up, swinging her feet down into the footwell and covering her legs once more.

He coughed, ran a hand through his hair. “I'm—”

“Save it,” She snapped, and another cigarette appeared between her lips. She lit it up, didn't offer him one this time.

“Erzse...?” He faltered and tried lifting his hand to her shoulder, but she shrugged him off.

“Better take me back to jail now, I guess.”

“Hey, hang on! I could just bring you into protective custody and drive you home. I’ll just ring up the Stasi, or the embassy. They’ll shut down any questions unless Braginski comes around snooping.” He gulped. He’d be on a train for Siberia in a heartbeat if Ivan became suspicious of anything.

“Your toilet is two flights down. At least the jail has it right there in the cell.” She puffed quickly on her cigarette, smoke rolling in rings around her mouth. Erzse was the manliest smoker in Europe. He almost laughed, but his heart was banging away in his throat, and he found he couldn’t.

“At home, I at least have a bed.” he scooted towards her. “Do you see this piece of crap? We’d break it.”

“What if I want to break it?” she retorted.

“If I break it, I can’t come and see you until they give me your bike back.” He said, and her eyes shone.

“My bike?” She drew her eyebrows together.

“The Pannonia. You made it. You make the best things on this side of the wall.” He snagged her hand in his and lifted it. She still had hands shaped like a lady’s, albeit callused from centuries of archery. She glared at him, and her mouth opened, and he kissed her where, even in the dead of winter, she had tan lines from her arm guard and thumb ring. There were lines across her fingers, ancient scars she’d had even when they were children. He looked up at her, shyly but trying to say things he doesn’t have words for. He was so goddamned tired.

He kissed her knuckles, drew her small hands between his own. He looked at her. She’d always seen beyond the garnet of his eyes. She’s always seen him.

She sighed. Her face didn't soften, but she didn't take her hand away.

“I—” His breath stuttered in his chest. He swallowed. “You— You know right?” She had to know that she and Lutz were everything in his world. He’s twisted; he wouldn't deny it. His compass had never pointed north but spun and spun and spun until it was caught by one of their magnets. His sun rose the wrong way, unnaturally, with his brother in the West. But Christ, if it set, it would set unto the east. With her.

“Gilbert...” Her brow pinched and God, she needed to know. It'd been so fucking long. She leant close, she crossed the divide, pulled herself to him on the strength of his grip. Her breath ghosted across his bare skin, across his jaw until her lips seared a kiss into his.

“Of course I know, you fucking idiot. I’ve known for centuries. Did you really think you needed to fucking tell me?” Her teeth bit down on his lip as she slid closer, one hand resting on his thigh. She moved, kissed up behind his ear, down his jawline, around his Adam's apple. She tugged down the collar of his shirt to give attention to his collarbone as her fingers undid the buttons of his coat. He fumbled for the keys to turn the ignition off.

“Jesus Christ.” He groaned.

“I won’t break the car.” She muttered as she gave up on the coat buttons, moving down to the creaking leather of his belt. The handcuffs looped around it jostled with the movements of her quick fingers, but he barely noticed.

“Fuck the car, just don’t break me!” He fumbled for the keys and dropped them as Erzsé’s hand slid down the front of his open pants.

“Sh—Shit! Erzsé!” he blurted as he dove down between his boots, plucked up the keys and tossed them onto the shallow of the dashboard.

Her warm hand fingered him above the thin fabric of his underwear, free hand flat against his stomach and pushing up his shirt. She leant down with a smile and pressed a kiss just under his hip. He wriggled, and she laughed, breath slipping under his waistband as her fingers tightened. He pushed down, and she rose to meet him. Erzse rose to meet any man who'd ever had the courage to touch her. She kissed him with gnashing teeth and worked a furious hand over the length of him.

Erzsé sped up, faster than Gilbert had intended. He’d wanted to feel her, feel the warmth of her, smooth and slow. But she fumbled with her skirts, wresting them free of her legs and awkwardly breaking the kiss with sounds like a champagne cork popping. Gilbert tried to bring her closer, fingers latching on the bare sides of her hips, and just when he thought she would yield, she grabbed back for the control. Her leg lifted over his thigh, and she kneeled on his lap.

Her tongue ran along the roof of his mouth, and he lost himself in her. She tasted like cigarettes, but something sweet too, like she'd had just eaten cake or coffee with real sugar. God, he missed coffee.

"What the shit?" Something cold clasped around his wrist, and he pulled back, finding Erzsé pulling his other hand free from where it was wrapped around her side to lock it into the handcuffs she’d threaded through the grate that had just separated them.

Her eyes flickered up to his. “Is this ok?”

He nearly snorted. What the fuck was okay? His brother was across a border, and he’d spent 10 years above the Arctic circle. Here, he was warm, and he trusted her more than anything else he had left. Trusted her more than this Kafkaesque half-country of his, more than the ground beneath his feet or the sky above his head. The sun might not rise tomorrow, but Erzsé would.

He folded like a Russian-made card table for her. Sweet Jesus, he always had. He nodded, dumb and throbbing. Erzse’s smile tugged to the left, flushed cheek dimpling as she guided his hands to hook around the grate. She sat back on his lap to take in her work, turning a 900-year-old soldier into a mess of nerves jittering with anticipation. Her eyes raked over the high arch of his chest as it heaved into the silence of the cabin with short, ragged breaths.

She leant forward and kissed his bottom lip, biting. Her way of thanking him for letting her do this. He almost snorted. Her thanking him was slightly absurd. They both knew she could have had anyone she wanted and he was lucky to be here, under her warmth. She rubbed her nose against the bridge of his before pulling back and rising from his lap.

“Up,” she said, and he lifted his hips, watching her eyebrows knit and mouth part as she tugged his lower half free of his clothes.

Her palm was warm against the length of him, and he tipped his head back, hair digging into the headrest, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. His throat felt thick, his tongue working uselessly. He can’t remember when he was last so warm. Her hand slid along, making him jerk his hips up each time her fingers curved down. He came alive in her hand, all the blood in his body dividing itself in half to rush to between his legs or between his ears. The roar of the rushing heat in his veins blocked out everything but her soft palm against the hard of him.

“Ready?” She whispered. And he throws himself forward, forgetting the handcuffs. His wrists protest, but his mouth finds her skin. The sticky skin of her cheek was hot as he breathed his permission. The wool of his trousers scraped against his calves as she pushed them down further and rose up, lifting the skirts of her dress and coat. There was a catch of air in her throat, and she lowered herself onto him. Her stockings and garters grated against his leg. And then he was inside her. He moaned.

Erzsé, beautiful, wild, wonderful Erzsé. Erzsé who still only wore knickers when she wore trousers. Erzsé, who still wore those wealthy looking western clothes with the rest of her people even when the rest of their half of the Bloc were still in their shit uniforms. Erzsé, who did what she wanted even when Ivan aimed his tanks and wrath at Budapest. Erzsé, who set him on fire. Erzsé, who extinguished the world.

She was wet and ready for him. He was born the sword hand of Christendom, but she was not a sheath meant to fit him. She was more than a warm body to wield a weapon. She was only two-thirds of what she was before Trianon, but she was still more whole, more human and more, more, more than he would ever be.

She sank down on him like snow falling and settling into easy, mounding drifts. She was slow and smooth and gentle at first, but the dull ache of warmth and want exploded into full, furious heat. She moved like the spark of revolution catching fire, soft roar of flames and idealism kicking into life and eating across spilt gasoline and hungry, desperate souls. She had fought her revolution and Ivan had claimed her victory for his own, but less than a decade later, here they were, and she was the wealthiest of the bloc, the happiest barrack in the garrison. Her hair spread back across the collar of her coat in a spray of waves, and her eyes were flinty, sparkling green.

Her hands slipped under his jacket until her palms were flat against his chest, roaming up and down. Her thumbs found his nipples and elicited a jerking flutter of ribs and flat planes of muscle. He could only uselessly clench his hands as glassy sensations scattered across his nerves, lighting down to his toes like a flame burning through a line of gunpowder. It was the fire and hail of shrapnel rendered polite and passionate across his body. She rocked against him and God—God! He needed more. He'd been a god of war once; he needed more.

“Erzsé?” He choked, turning his head. His nose buried in her hair, mouth pressed against the curve of her ear. A little growl unfurled in her throat.

“Yeah?” Her hips stuttered for a moment, hot breaths pausing.

“Remember—” She rocked a mighty roll of her hips across him and he rose to meet her. She would not stop here. “Remember how we used to do it? Before?”

God in Heaven, what they had done when they were younger. Not so young that he was not yet Prussia, but when she wore her armour in the name of Austria and the flags of many empires had flown across her land. When they were young enough that the wilds of her countryside hid two tethered horses, a single little lean-to tent and the moans of a man. He'd cried out happily and whimpered his pain under the ministrations of the half-wild woman she'd been. The empires had hurt her, divided and spliced and conquered her land. But not one had taken her body.

With sword and pistol and wit she had kept her body her own. But when Gilbert had come down from the Baltic and left his armour behind, she had taken him. Taken him and carved her agony into his body. The empires had flown their flags and left, and she had weathered them all. He’d laid beneath her for all of it. She’d carved her need and loathing into his back and chest and left it bruised into his cheek and his ribs. He was sure he still has a scar from a few years after Mohacs. From when he’d searched the backwoods in the remaining sliver of free Hungary with a letter of summons with the Habsburg seal emblazoned upon it in his saddle bag. He'd presented her with it. She'd drank his wine and then she’d torn into him that night, howling her pain and leaving strips of his back skinless from her nails.

The morning after, as he'd washed in the river, he'd winced at the sight of himself in the clear water. His back had been open and But she’d been quieter, happier and lighter the next day. This time, though, it was not her who needed to dole out pain, but he who needed to receive it. He needed to feel like he did before, the pain just under the rolling pleasure of adrenaline. He could not drive his sword into an enemy chest, but she could pierce her nails into him, and it was just as good. She’d always been more than the world, more than enough.

The little moon-slivers of her fingernails curved into his skin, dragging down with red, angry marks. His back arched higher from the seat, chest opening with a sharp inhale and shoulder blades digging into the seat.

“Like that?” She asked and her eyes—Her eyes are so dilated they are blown black against the whites. All the green of the iris gone to lust.

“Yes!” He heaved. She tugged at the shirt, a button popping loose and falling to the floor of the Trabant. Then his bare chest was free to pierce with biting kisses trailing down the scratches she had craved. Her wet lips burned against the raw skin and his groan vibrated against her mouth.

She moved her kisses up, leaving bite marks on his skin. She lavished attention on his neck before drawing her face back over his to kiss his mouth with smooth lips and gnashing teeth. Her hips never stopped rolling against him. He tried to match her rhythm but his shoulders started to burn, and he felt weak under her. He was weak, but his hands had strength enough to pull against the cuffs, desperate to touch her. She'd never undressed. Her coat and dress were still buttoned to her throat, and it was frustration like he’d rarely known to feel her breasts against his skin, hidden behind the fabric.

Her hands slipped into his hair, tugging hard until his eyes snapped open and lips went limp against hers. Pressure buzzed and his feet flexed inside his boots. He could only heave against the restraints, grunting. She grinned, raked her nails through his hair more. He nearly lost control there, but then she was tearing at his shoulders and at his spine, and he keeps himself intact, if only for a moment or so longer.

She came first, pace forming between them like the wavering, shimmering air that glowed over a firebombed city. He was the smouldering ruins of Koenigsburg rocking under her, and she poured life and breath into him. Her nails drew blood in his upper arms as she held on and threw her head back. Her hips rocked once— twice— three times more and then she howled.

Her frantic, ancient Hungarian tossing the night aside and rising to meet the ears of the whole world. She was always maddeningly loud. She usually indulged him with German, but the roar of her own tongue in his head was as good as a sword singing against a whetstone or the hiss of mortars flung through the air. He wanted her like he needed conflict, the way he'd needed Fritz, the way he needed beer and the Baltic and his old black and white banner.

She'd halted for only a moment before she ground down on him, harder than ever. She palmed his jaw with a cracking slap, her nails piercing into his cheek and drove his head into the back of the seat. The tension in her back released and she snapped, momentum coursing through her like the curve of a whip. It ended as she pounded her hips into his with as much force as she ever had. Her free hand dragged at his hair, and that was it, fucking mother of hell, that was all he could take. White flooded before his eyes. His back arched up the seat, hands digging into the back of the grate. Lightning up his spine, ice through his legs. He shuddered out a howl. His shoulders and thighs burned, and he laid back, head flopping bonelessly against his shoulder. Erzsé sat back on his knees, her wine coloured coat up parted and flipped over the froth of her tulle crinolines and green dress. He got a glimpse of her pale thighs above her stockings, but then she’s smoothing her skirts down and pulling her hair back to curl behind her shoulders.

The windows of Trabant, frosted over and beading with fog, everything sticky with a layer of humidity, even the wisps of hair clinging against Erzsé’s temples. She found the key to the cuffs in his pocket, and let him free. As soon as he’d rubbed some feeling back into his hands, he reached for her. She opened her arms, and he burrowed his head into the lapel of her coat.

“Thank you,” He whispered to her collarbone.

She hummed and rubbed her hand up and down his spine. She let him sit there. He was warm and dizzy against her chest, listening to her muffled heartbeat. His arms dropped from around her waist and he sank into her chest.

“Gilbert?” She said. “Gilbert, we should go,” Erzsé said. But it was distant, somewhere further away than right beneath him. His body felt heavy. Blood poured from his head, his skull a leaden sieve. His eyes shut, and he let himself slide away.

He might have been war incarnate, but God, he just wanted peace. For once, he slipped into the dark and the peace.

**Author's Note:**

> 1.) This fic would not have been possible without the prior works of Erde's sensual, intimate Pruhun, Katuman's haughty and hilarious Prussia and Americaoreosandkitkat's fierce, indomitable Hungary. Their masterful strokes of characterisation, history and setting can be seen to have influenced every paragraph here. If you didn't like anything or I made mistakes, they rest entirely with me.
> 
> 2.) In 1963: The wall is new, Gilbert has been home from the Gulag for 6 years, taken with the bulk of German soldiers captured during the war and held in Siberia until 1956 when the last survivors of the battles of Stalingrad of Koenigsberg and Berlin were finally repatriated by the Soviet Union to East Germany. It shows in everything he will do in this fic as he finds his strength again.
> 
> 3.) Happiest in the eastern bloc: In the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Hungarians were defeated. However, after the bulk of Russian soldiers left the country, they resolutely begin to reform the country and by the time this fic is set, would have had none of the shortages and queues for food, clothing and consumer goods the way the rest of the Warsaw Pact countries did. This combination of small private enterprise and flexible socialism was called 'Goulash Economics' and produced one of the strongest economies of the eastern bloc.
> 
> 4.) Operation Spring Awakening: on the 6th of March 1945, the Germans launched their last attacks of the war in Hungary near the Lake Balaton area. This area possessed the last of the oil reserves still available to the Axis. The operation involved many German units withdrawn from the failed Ardennes Offensive on the Western Front. From the beginning, due to a combination of lack of Germany resources and Red Army abundance, the offensive was doomed.
> 
> 5.) The Trabant: in 1957, the East Germans began to produce a light, cheaply made car that did not change in production for the next 40 years. It was cheap, faulty and loathed amongst those Germans old enough to remember better days and better cars. Now, with the rise of ostalgie in the former East Germany, it is a collectable fixer upper. 
> 
> 6.) The Pannonia: The Hungarians were supposed to have made the best motorcycles in the eastern bloc, exporting them across the communist world and for a fair profit (Marx is rolling in his coffin and Erzse is happily dancing on his grave.)
> 
> 7.) The title is from Emily Dickinson. It was suggested by the ever amazing Americaoreosandkitkat's because of the lovely because I'm a pretentious fucker and it's a beautiful rendition of Winter description.
> 
> 8.) I can be found at: https://historia-vitae-magistras.tumblr.com/ Where I post mostly history and Hetalia and aesthetic posts.
> 
> 9.) Reviews, Comments, Critiques and Kudos are all loved like my own children. Even if you just want to scream at me about some inaccuracy or you have a question, I'd love to read and answer. Favourite lines, annoying bits, conflicting headcanons, overall impressions are all welcome and loved. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and see you next time!


End file.
